


Love the Shears

by SandrC



Series: Not Another Fanfiction Collection [22]
Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Bev is only a child, Character of Faith, End of the World, Having Faith, and that is sad, faith is a tricky subject, it will be okay eventually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:49:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22490344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: After the world has ended, Beverly drifts. Literally. Figuratively. Spiritually.Melora and the Dusk Mother are so different from Pelor that it hurts.(Maybe he should have died there, instead of Erlin. Then the guilt wouldn't be eating him alive.)
Series: Not Another Fanfiction Collection [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1312925
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	Love the Shears

**Author's Note:**

> Mmmmmmmmmmmboy 89 really took me.
> 
> Murph did a great job with this arc and the story and I, for one, am supremely excited to see what he does next.
> 
> (As someone who loves the book of Revelations, lemme say that the aesthetic going on here is fucking amazing. V on point. Thanks.)
> 
> I like thinking a lot about magic and how it feels/looks. How clerics feel when they channel their god. How Murph has flavored a lot of the interactions between the gods and the Boobs. How neat that is. So this is, of course, the natural conclusion.
> 
> It's a little rambly and disjointed but I'm warranted this. It's meant to be stream-of-conciousness lite, so it's meant to be disjointed.
> 
> I am Protestant Christian by birth (probably Baptist but I have long since forgotten the first church I attended) and still Christian by practice and that probably flavors my experiences and writing somewhat but...there ya go. I don't go to church but I still believe and faith has always been one of those things that haunts me gently like my shadow. I think this is why the Chosen and Thiala have always made me so angry. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ who knows.
> 
> Title taken from "The Gardener" by Sarah Sparks

Time passes in a haze, distant and detached. There's a small part of Beverly that realizes that he's doing some weird type of compartmentalizing, pushing down the panic and horror at the trauma he's experienced and witnessed to make room for clarity of mind.

 _That_ part is easily drowned out by the emptiness in his chest.

Staring at the tumultuous apocalyptic sky above him, Beverly closes his eyes and reaches into the hollow of his chest for what gods have answered him thus far.

The Dusk Mother. Melora. A goddess who helped him with his father and a goddess who walks adjacent to the mortal plane at a respectful distance. The daughter of the god he helped kill and the one goddess who is closest to Thiala in conception.

They're so like Pelor and so _not_.

Pelor was warm summer sun and green grass. His presence was behind Beverly every step of the way throughout his childhood, a patient father observing with a smile. He answered prayers and granted power. He was every breath Beverly took and every laugh that crossed his lips.

_Was. **Was.**_

But there was a snapping noise, deep in his chest, and everything Beverly considered himself fell to small pieces, scattered in the pit of his gut as he held Erlin and cried. A taut rubber band that ran from his head to his heart and with one spell, shattered and scattered.

He inhales and exhales, _trying_ to feel Pelor again.

He knows he can't but he _tries_. It's what's kept him going thus far, back on the shell of Laslo, head a million miles away. Trying. Not giving up.

 _Gods_ , he's tired.

There's radiance there, still, _just_ out of reach proper, but Melora and the Dusk Mother answered him before. He can _feel_ them. They just don't feel _the same_.

Pelor was summer. Warm and enjoyable. Laughter. Light. Grass and water and sun so bright you can smell it. Refreshing and comforting.

The Dusk Mother is more winter. Cold, sharp breezes that cause you to draw your coat closer around your shoulders. Bright light that isn't warm, but illuminates everything in clarity that _hurts_ in some way. Skies a radiant blue that remind you of the bare trees and leaves the bones of the earth exposed. The sharp and staggering death of the old to make way for the new.

Her magic, when he channeled it through Pelor to help his father, was stifled and softened. Raw, it chaps his soul and dries his skin. Not _unpleasant_ , but _different_. Even Pelor's light _burned_. But the cold, the sharp edges, are new and, in the current time, he misses the _familiar_ and _safe_.

Melora is a different matter. He doesn't have a personal connection with her as he does the Dusk Mother. He just knows her through Moonshine and the few times he's met her in person. It's _strange_ to have a face to face with a god you don't believe in, but he's been there at least twice. _Three times_ , if you count Thiala.

 _He **doesn't**_. She _isn't_ a god, _no matter_ the technicality. She's a monster and a terror. _She_ is what is wrong with everything.

He feels petulant and childish, thinking this, but _he doesn't care._

He _deserves_ a little childishness.

_The world is ending._

Melora's magic is spring to Pelor's summer and the Dusk Mother's winter. Warm and cold in equal amounts, shifting without warning. She is nature in its most raw form. She is the fires that clear the way for new growths. She is days that start in jackets and end in nothing but your swimsuit, sweating and exhausted. She is blizzards one day and a heat wave a week later. She is green, yes, but new green and leaves and buds.

Pelor's light, his presence, was comfort. Familial. The last thing he had of his father's, save his name.

The Dusk Mother's light is cold and biting. Not unwanted but foreign and bracing. **Be strong, young Beverly, and weather this storm.** Strength through trial and tribulation. A harsh love that _knows_ he'll make it through to the other side.

Melora's light is wild and shifting. **Never settle, never calm. Be flexible, be willing to change, and you will be alright.** _Indifferent_ , yes, but not _unloving_. That which is, _is_ , and that which is not, _will not be_. A paradox that wraps a möbius loop in itself.

Beverly watches the world ending around him, Laslo quietly swimming through the ocean. He wonders if his friends know where he is. He wonders if they're alive. He wonders if he should have tried harder to get to Erlin.

He wonders if he should have _drowned_.

And inside the hollow of of his chest, building pieces of his self back with the care of a clockmaker, the gods that have answered him whisper.

**Be flexible. Be mutable.**

**You will be stronger for this.**

**It is not unkindness without purpose.**

**_You_ will make this act _your power._**

**Be calm. Be patient. _Trust_.**

**Have _faith_ , Beverly Toegold, and know you are not alone.**

_**Have faith.** _


End file.
